


Surprisingly Simple

by scarletjedi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, M/M, Marauders' Era, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 07:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11481372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletjedi/pseuds/scarletjedi
Summary: One day, Lily Evans notices James noticing Remus, and remus noticing right back.She can work with that.





	Surprisingly Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGryphling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGryphling/gifts).



> Written for the lovely Maysun. This was out of my usual comfort zone, but I'm really happy with the way this turned out. I hope you're happy, too!

* * *

Later, Lily would say that it started just before their final Winter Holidays (though really, it must have started years before, when James stopped being an ass and Remus began to relax around her). They, not just the Marauders but most of the fifth, sixth, and seventh years, were sitting the Great Hall, ostensibly studying, but with the holidays just around the corner, nobody was really thinking about schoolwork. Lily was sitting with James, Remus, and Peter, watching Sirius saunter around the Hall with a sprig of mistletoe, charmed to hover over the head of any available witch or wizard until they had been soundly kissed.

(“What if they don’t want to be kissed?” Remus had asked, wearing that half-smile that meant he found Sirius’s antics less funny than Sirius believed them to be.

“Who wouldn’t want to be kissed by me?” Sirius had countered, and Lily had laughed the loudest when Peter immediately raised his hand).

“Five Sickles says the next one slaps him,” James said to Remus, leaning in close to whisper in his ear.

Remus rolled his eyes, turning his head just a little to give James a flat look, and if Lily hadn’t been looking at just that moment, she never would have noticed the flush that had briefly risen in Remus’s cheek. (If she was being honest, it wasn’t enough color to even register on anyone else, but Remus was always too pale during the first days of the waning moon).

“I’m not just going to give you money, Prongs,” Remus muttered, eyes slitted, and Lily’s eyebrows raised when she saw James lick his lower lip, the same unconscious tell he had when he had first seen Lily in her muggle bathing costume.

Sure enough, a moment later, the resounding crack of skin against skin echoed through the hall, and Sirius staggered back to their table, rubbing a red cheek and holding the crushed remains of his mistletoe. He dropped down into his seat, legs splayed loosely before him, looking rather punch drunk.

“I think I’m in love,” he said. Lily rolled her eyes.

“I think you have a concussion,” she said, and the these moment between Remus and James was lost as James hauled Sirius to his feet to get checked out by Madame Pomfrey.

Still, Lily remembered that flush, and the look from her boyfriend, and tucked that information away to think about later

* * *

The Winter Holidays passed far too quickly—much more quickly than they had in first year, or even fifth. Lily spent most of it at the Potter’s, more than willing to escape the cold stranger than had replaced her sister, and avoid the places where her memories of Severus were still too painful. Sirius was a frequent guest (he often crashed on the Potters’ sofa when life with his family grew too much to bear, which was near constant in these increasingly dark times). With only three days left, Sirius appeared on James’s doorstep, trunk and broomstick in hand, and announced that he was done, and that he’d just have to rent a flat come Summer, because he was never moving back into 12 Grummauld Place.

Of course James took him in. Lily wouldn’t still be with James if he was the type of person to turn his friends away when they needed him, but it still meant that their already precious time alone was over without having discussed the matter of Remus. When Remus himself appeared the next day with Peter in tow, Lily was unable to raise the subject.

Lily wasn’t worried. She had time, and she had patience.

* * *

The trick to snogging in the Astronomy Tower was to do it with the _expectation_ of getting caught. It was such a well-known romantic location, especially for couples who didn’t share a dormitory, that it may as well become the Great Hall after the sunset for all the privacy it lacked. 

Sometimes, if you were lucky, your corner was dark enough, and you were quiet enough, you could remain undetected. Know that you were able to do what countless other students failed to do—snog without worry of detention.

It helped, of course, when your boyfriend had an Invisibility Cloak. If they were careful, they could both fit under its length while Professor McGonagall made her rounds. The few minutes after inspection were always the safest, and allowed for the greatest privacy.

Perfect, in fact, for what Lily had in mind.

Coast clear, James leaned in, mouth parting to kiss her, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Tell me about Remus,” she said, and James blinked at her. Without his glasses, he really couldn’t see far, the poor thing, but he could see her well enough—she could see the way his face turned red even though the moonlight.

“What about Remus?” James asked, voice cracking.

“That he fancies you,” Lily said, but James was already shaking his head.

“No—he fancies _you,_ ” he insisted, and Lily sat back.

“Me?” She asked, stunned. She hadn’t picked up on that at all.

Well. _That_ certainly changed things.

James nodded. “He goes absolutely moony over you,” he said, and she half-heartedly slapped at his arm at that terrible pun. “Seriously; he looks at you like you hung the stars.”

Lily licked her lips. “If I hung the stars, then he looks at you like you make the sun rise,” she said, and pressed on before James could deny it. “And I’ve seen you looking back.”

James pressed his tongue into his cheek. “I’ve seen you looking, too,” he said in a voice that wanted to be accusing, but ended up more petulant. He shook his head. “This isn’t good.”

Lily stared at her boyfriend, and felt her heart thud in her chest as a cool resolve swept over her. “Why not?” she asked.

“Because he’s _Remus,”_ James insisted. “He doesn’t believe he deserves—“ He cut himself off, but Lily found himself smiling in sympathy. She was well aware of the gaps in Remus’s self-esteem. “He’d never agree to date _both_ of us.”

But a plan was already forming in Lily’s mind.

“Leave that to me,” she said.

* * *

It turned out that seducing one’s friend was a lot more difficult when you were a) also doing it on behalf of one’s boyfriend, and b) said friend was more than willing to _never admit to his attraction to anyone, ever._ Remus’s taciturn nature served him very well in other matters—it made him far more politic than the other Marauders and therefore less likely to be called out by the professors simply by virtue of not saying everything he was thinking out loud, and it certainly helped to keep his lycanthropy from the school gossip mill.

But it was utter bollocks when trying to get into his pants!

Remus didn’t respond to any of their overtures. He looked at James oddly when James offered to carry Remus’s books, and when Lily leaned in close, flipping her hair to gain his attention, he shied away. Remus was annoyed when James tried to pay for dinner, and when Lily invited him to “study” at the library, he actually studied.

Granted, their N.E.W.T.S were right around the corner, and—

Their N.E.W.T.S were right around the corner! Lily hadn’t studied! All plans were put on hold as Lily enlisted Remus and dragged the others through their reviews, drinking far too much pepper-up potion (Sirius), or tea (Lily and Remus), or coffee (James and Peter). The weeks passed, and the five of them developed the wild-eyed look of all students at their final exam.

Finally, it was Friday night, so late it was technically Saturday morning on the eve of their final Hogsmeade weekend as Hogwarts students. James and Lily were the last awake in the common room; Sirius had climbed the stairs earlier, dragging a drowsing Peter along in his wake. Remus, Sirius had left sleeping on the sofa, waggling his eyebrows at James until James threw a pillow at Sirius’s head. Apparently, they hadn’t been nearly as subtle as they had thought.

“It’s not working,” Jamie's murmured. He had his head resting in Lily’s lap, his feet dangling over the edge of the sofa and his glasses hooked into the front of his shirt. Idly, Lily ran her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly with her nails. “This is nice, though.” He smiled up at her.

Lily huffed a laugh, gently tweaking his ear. “I’m not giving up,” she said, her voice pitched low. “He’s _Remus._ He’s too important for both of us.”

“I know,” James said and then sighed. “But I’ve run out of ideas. I don’t know what else to try.”

“You could try asking.”

Lily and James froze.

Voice thickened with sleep, Remus cracked an eye open to peer at them, glittering in the firelight. He didn’t appear mad, though it was sometimes hard to tell. Actually, he looked _amused._

Slowly, Lily began to relax, feeling not a little bit sheepish.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t being subtle, you know,” he said. “The whole school knows. The other day I had little ‘Dora ask me when I was going to put you both out of your misery and give you answer already.”

Lily covered her face with her hand. She really hadn’t been subtle if Nymphadora Tonks had noticed.

“Well, why haven’t you?” James asked, bold as brass. Perhaps that was the way, after all.

Rolling his eyes and clearly fighting a smile, Remus shifted on the sofa to face them both and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Because. You. Haven’t. Asked.”

James closed his eyes, flopping back onto the sofa with a groan, but Lily grinned. Sometimes, it really was that easy. “Remus, would you like to go with us to Hogsmeade tomorrow?”

“As our date?” James added with a lopsided grin. ”Just to be clear.”

“Sure, but I expect flowers,” Remus said, eyes already closed.

Lily looked at James, and nodded towards Remus.

James nodded, decisive.

Remus must have felt them coming, because he was already laughing when they fell on him, wrestling with tickling hands until Remus kissed James soundly on the mouth, startling him to stillness.

Well, of course Lily had to kiss him next. How could she not, after that?

It didn’t really go farther than a few giddy kisses—they hadn’t even been on a date yet, after all—but it felt right to revel in the simple joy of contact.

Eventually, they fell asleep like that, tangled together and eager for tomorrow.


End file.
